


After The Storm

by csi_sanders1129



Category: Heavy Rain
Genre: Aftermath, Comfort, Ficuary, Healing, M/M, Recovery, challenge, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29521977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/pseuds/csi_sanders1129
Summary: In which Norman Jayden very much just wants to go to bed, but someone is knocking on the hotel room door.
Relationships: Norman Jayden/Ethan Mars
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Ficuary





	After The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ficuary 2021, Prompt: Comfort. First try at Heavy Rain fic. Set post-game. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!

Norman Jayden very much just wants to go to bed.

There isn't a single part of him that doesn't hurt. The fight with the Origami Killer had definitely left him pretty bruised and bloodied. The entirety of his back is slowly turning a lovely shade of purple. There's a deep bruise across his neck from the pipe Shelby had tried to take him down with. There are others here and there from the various objects that had been thrown at him. He has a black eye that's nearly swollen shut. His forearms and knees are pretty shredded from broken glass on the conveyor belt, some of the deeper cuts had needed stitches. His ankle is swollen and he can't quite put his weight on it, likely from when Shelby had grabbed it before he'd fallen to his death. All of that on top of the array of injuries he'd gained in the three other life or death fights that had preceded the fight on the conveyor in the span of the past week.

Since his ill-advised escape from the ER, he's given his statement, handed over his badge and gun for the duration of the investigation, filled his prescriptions and headed back to the hotel. So far, he's managed to completely the seemingly monumental task of a shower.

And now, finally, his bed is in sight.

But someone is knocking on his door.

Not that many people know where he's staying. Chief Perry. Maybe Blake. It's likely they would have called him if they were planning to pay him a visit, but it's also entirely possible that they tried – his cell phone was destroyed sometime during the fight, after all.

"Who is it?" He calls out, exhaustion in his hoarse voice as he limps over to the door. He pulls it open, too tired to be cautious. If someone wants to kill him right now, that'd be all the faster he'd get to lie down, he thinks.

"Agent Jayden?" Comes the response, which is not an answer to his inquiry, but probably has something to do with the fact that he sways alarmingly into the arms of the man on the other side of his door. "Whoa, there," he says, freshly bandaged hands steadying the injured FBI agent. It's Ethan Mars. "You okay? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Bed," Norman answers, as the world spins alarmingly around him. Exhaustion, injuries, ARI, tripto, or some combination thereof - he needs to sit down before gravity does it for him.

Obligingly, Ethan helps him hobble over to the double bed in the center of his hotel room. The bed, much like everything else in the room, is as standard as they come, but bed is bed is bed and if he can just reach it, he'll be out.

"Thanks," he manages, when Ethan shifts his weight to the mattress and lets him fall back against the pillows.

And fall he does.

* * *

He can smell food.

It's a delicious bacon and eggs and coffee kind of smell and It manages to stir him enough that he's actually tempted to find the energy required to consume it. That is until he starts to wonder why his hotel room smells like a delicious breakfast when there shouldn't even be anyone else in it.

However, in his sudden rush of concern for this fact, he sits up entirely too fast and he's reminded that more of his body is bruised than is not, at present, and that such quick movements might have possibly been a mistake.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He shouts, vision blurring out of focus when he does finally manage to force his eyes open through the pain.

"I would've gone with 'truck' since it looks like that's what you were hit by."

Right.

Ethan.

Norman relaxes when he remembers, though he's not quite sure why the relieved father stuck it out with him and isn't at the hospital with Shaun. "Feels like it, too," he concedes. "What're you still doin' here?"

Ethan's sitting at the small table in the corner of the room, a couple of styrofoam containers of food, a duo of coffee cups, and a newspaper before him. "Well, I came to thank you for saving my son and instead you passed out in my arms. I figured it was the least I could do to make sure you were alright."

"You stayed all night?"

"If you could see what you looked like, you wouldn't have left you alone, either," Ethan defends, crossing the room to offer a coffee.

He takes a long, long swig of it and tries to sit up a little straighter. "Why aren't you at the hospital?"

"Only one of us could stay overnight so Grace kicked me out. I can go back when visiting hours start," a glance at the clock reveals that it's only just past six. "Why aren't _you_ at the hospital?"

Norman doesn't know why, but he answers honestly. "Checked myself out against medical advice last night. Figured I'd hole up in here until I could breathe without feeling like I'm being stabbed in the ribs."

Ethan frowns, "I can take you back, if you want," now, he offers a hand, and a gesture toward the table and the food waiting there, "after breakfast."

Norman takes his hand.

* * *

Despite the fact that he really probably should go back to the ER, he talks Ethan into dropping him off at the station on his way to the hospital, instead. It's far from the first place he wants to be, but there is still a literal mountain of paperwork to finish and the sooner he can be done with that, the sooner he can get the hell out of this town.

The place is nearly deserted. No doubt officers are still processing the scene at the old warehouse. Others, he learns, are dealing with an additional clusterfuck at Scott Shelby's apartment, which rather suspiciously went up in flames around the same time as shit went down with Shelby himself. The few officers that are left in house are busy fielding phone calls and requests for interviews, conferences, reports. He ignores them all and heads straight for the little room that had been his office, limping his way there.

It's not long before someone notices.

Carter Blake appears just a few minutes later, looming in the doorway. "That's not suspicious at all, Jayden," he gripes, "bailing from the hospital, ignoring all contact, then having Ethan fucking Mars drop you off here. Like that doesn't reek of you two getting your stories straight."

"What's there to get straight, Blake?" He snaps, not in the mood for these accusations. "You have one very dead Origami Killer to clean out of that grinder, one not dead kid recovering in the hospital with his family. You're fucking welcome for solving a case you had for two years in less than a week."

He half expects Blake to haul off and punch him in the face, but the man just glowers and storms off. He's glad, he's pretty sure he'd lose the fight. He settles back in to the pile of reports he needs to deal with and really hopes his vision stops swimming soon.

* * *

Norman wakes up in a hospital bed.

There's something to his left that persists in making a very annoying, very persistent beeping noise, and it is very much not helping the pounding headache that's settled in deep in his skull. He forces his eyes open with the intention of finding someone to make that damn beeping stop, but the too-bright lights promptly put an end to that plan. He winces, groans, rolls to his side and is very surprised to find Ethan Mars watching over him once again.

"Starting to think you have a thing for watching me sleep," he grumbles. "How's Shaun?"

"They want to keep him another night, just to be safe, but he's doing as well as can be expected," he explains. And then he adds, teasingly, "So, better than you?"

"That's fair," Norman concedes, struggling to sit up properly despite the ache in his ribs and his head and his… everything, really. "How long have I been out?"

"A few hours – you passed out at the station, evidently. They didn't tell me anything, obviously, but from what I heard, they're surprised you made it that far. Hell, I'm still surprised you made it out of the hotel room this morning."

Norman manages a laugh, which proves to be a poor choice. He winces, "That makes two of us."

"You should stick around this time, then," Ethan offers friendly advice that Norman will definitely not take. "I've been bouncing between you and Shaun all afternoon. I'll swing by and see how you're doing later, if that's okay with you?"

"Sure thing, if I haven't checked myself out again yet," he answers.

By the time visiting hours are set to end, there's a doctor in the room, trying to persuade him to stay. He's already back in his own clothes though, more than ready to leave without signing a damn thing if they don't give him the AMA paperwork soon. Being here isn't doing anything for him – the meds they give him don't touch the pain after the years of tripto and he certainly doesn't want that poison in his body again when the waves of withdrawal finally seem to have stopped. He's perfectly capable of being in pain somewhere less annoying than the hospital.

"You really need someone to keep an eye on you for the next day or two if you won't agree to be admitted," his doctor persists, "You're going to feel a hell of a lot worse before it starts to improve."

Which is fantastic news, really. Just what he wanted to hear. But it's not going to stop him, either. "I'm fresh out of babysitter's, doc," he snarks, grabbing up his jacket. "I'll make do on my own."

But that's when Ethan appears in the doorway.

"You can stay with me," he says, without the barest hint of hesitation.

"I can't let you do that," Norman insists.

"You can," Ethan counters. He gives the doctor a look that seems to assure the old man that he stands a better chance of talking his uncooperative patient into this without an audience, because the doctor slips away. "Look, I don't know everything you did on the case, but every time I saw you, you had more bruises. I don't know how you ended up at the warehouse, but you saved me – more than once, you helped me save my son from that maniac and you got even more injured doing it. The absolute least I could do to thank you for that is make sure you're okay. So, let me help you."

Norman doesn't want to accept Ethan's offer, but he doubts he could really stop him. Ethan knows where he's staying, and he certainly doesn't have the energy required to change hotels right now. Plus, he's sure when Shaun's released tomorrow, Ethan will have better things to do than watch over him. "Fine," he relents. "Okay. Thank you."

The relieved look on Ethan's face catches him off guard. "Good," he says, waving the doctor back over. "Sign what you need to sign. I'll meet you out front with my car."

* * *

He was absolutely kidding himself if he'd thought he could have made it this far alone. The steps up to his hotel room seem like Mount Everest – maybe more like three Mount Everest's all stacked atop one another – as Ethan slowly supports him in their summit of the twenty-two steps. He leans heavily against the other man as he digs through his pockets in search of his room keys, glad that they remained on his person and were not left at the station. With the door open, Ethan helps him shuffle over to the little table where they'd shared their breakfast this morning and deposits him there with more grace than he'd have managed on his own.

Ethan goes back to the car to retrieve the bags of Chinese food they picked up on the drive over, and Norman watches as he sorts out the contents upon his return. The two of them eat in a comfortable silence, while the small television in the room drones on and on about the latest football scores and weather reports. It's only when there's a briefing on the upcoming new stories – all about the investigation into the Origami Killer – that the silence breaks.

"…Why did you let me go?"

The question surprises him, but he finds himself answering it honestly. "'Cause I didn't think you did it. 'Cause I believed you when you said you were the only one that could save him. 'Cause Carter probably would have killed you and Perry probably would have let him get away with it."

Ethan's quiet for a long moment. "I should have told you everything. The letters… the challenges…"

He knows most of it now – he'd read a few of the reports this morning before he passed out, statements from Shelby's other victims (whom he'd evidently paid visits to in the last few days, collecting the last traces of evidence under the guise of investigating), the brief statement Ethan had made after Shaun's rescue (when he'd turned in the box of origami figures and the accompanying evidence). Still, he lets Ethan tell him of the hell he endured this week – his own torturous risks and sacrifices. A dangerous journey down the wrong side of the road, crawling through broken glass and through electrical pylons, amputating a finger, the murder of a drug dealer (the one trial which Ethan had refused to complete), and the ingestion of an allegedly fatal poison – all to get enough clues to find Shaun. All done to save his son from a serial killer, on top of fleeing from the police.

Norman tells him of his own perilous week, as well. He shouldn't, not when Ethan still hasn't been thoroughly interviewed, but he does anyway. There won't be a trial, after all – Shelby is dead and gone. And Norman doesn't have much of a career to worry about anymore. What does it matter? He tells Ethan of the leads that hadn't panned out – Korda and Mad Jack and Paco. He even tells the man about ARI, how he worked out where to go, the clues that started to pile up.

It's late by the time the conversation ends, both of them with a much better understanding of the others actions. Reluctantly, he asks for Ethan's help to take a shower – a task managed with a minimum of awkwardness or embarrassment – and once that's done, Norman finds the pull of sleep irresistible. Ethan helps him into bed, turns off the lights, and reclaims his seat at the table.

"Don't tell me you slept there last night," Norman wonders, the thought only just now occurring to him that there is only one bed in this room and Ethan Mars was most definitely not in it last night.

Ethan shrugs, "I dozed a bit."

Somehow, Norman doubts it was a very restful sleep. He doubts the days before that were very restful either with Shaun missing, the police after him, and Ethan's own array of painful injuries. He eyes the empty half of the bed. "Get over here," he says, all the invitation the other man is going to get.

"I'm fine," Ethan assures him.

"No, no, no," he counters, fully prepared to storm – well, slowly limp – over there and drag Ethan to bed if it proves necessary. "You get to worry about my health, I get to worry about yours – especially now that you've told me all the shit you've been through. That's how this is gonna work."

Reluctantly, Ethan gives in. He crosses the room and settles in on the empty half of the bed.

Exhausted as they are, it doesn't take long for sleep to find either of them.

* * *

This time, morning does not come with a barrage of appealing smells, but the shrill ring of a cell phone jars him back to bleary consciousness. He reaches blindly for the bedside table, fully expecting to find his phone there until he remembers he doesn't have it anymore. He only becomes aware of the arm wrapped around his waist and the warm breath on the back of his neck when they retreat – his bedmate fumbles for something on the other bedside table and then the sound stops, Ethan's tired voice mumbles a weary, 'hello?'

When the call ends, Ethan offers a relieved sigh and tosses the phone back to where it had been. "That was Grace. Shaun's being released around noon. He says he wants to go home with me."

"That's great, Ethan," he offers, quite relieved himself that the kid is going to be okay. He shifts, slowly but still very painfully, to face the other man. "Guess you'll be happy you can go back home again."

But there's a thoughtful look on Ethan's face. "You should come with us," he says. "You still shouldn't be alone."

He should say no. He should let Ethan and Shaun get back to whatever semblance of normal life they can after all this. He should go back to DC and… resign, probably. But, as much as he knows he should do those things, he finds himself agreeing with Ethan's request.

Ethan seems almost as relieved by his easy acceptance as he had with Shaun's release.

* * *

When they stop by the hospital to pick up Shaun that afternoon, Norman's along for the ride.

"Agent Jayden," Shaun greets him, looking orders of magnitude better than the last time he'd seen the boy, soaked through and shivering in his father's arms as they waited for the police to arrive at the old warehouse. "Are you coming home with us? Dad said you were hurt."

"As long as you're okay with that," he says, the one caveat he'd insisted on in accepting Ethan's generous offer.

It turns out that Shaun is very much okay with that. Norman has an inkling that the idea of having both his father and an FBI agent (even a comparatively useless one) in the house, looking out for him, might be offering the kid a bit more security in the wake of everything that happened to him. That's fine with him, though, he'll do anything he can to help.

So, they go home.

They go in the back as the street is crowded with reporters and journalists who've gotten word of Shaun's release from the hospital, all of them eager for a picture or a quote they can use in the saga of the Origami Killer's two year reign of terror. They keep the house dark and pull the blinds, blocking out the outside world.

Shaun tires easily, though, and not long after their arrival, Ethan tucks him into bed, assuring him that he'll be close by. Norman, too, is exhausted and complies easily when Ethan coaxes him upstairs and then into bed with him again, for a restful nap.

"You're sure you don't mind this?" Norman asks, one last time – though probably a bit late as they're both already on the edges of sleep.

"Yes," Ethan answers, one arm carefully reaching out to him, settling around his waist as it had done sometime in their sleep last night, "I want you to stay."

So, Norman stays. That night.

The next.

The day after, when the station finally calls Ethan in for a formal interview that Norman insists on tagging along for – if only to keep Blake and Perry in line.

A week later, when the pain has started to lessen. Ethan does not ask him to leave and he does not offer. No one seems to mind.

Two weeks.

A month later, when he takes a quick trip to DC to resign his position.

Two months, when Ethan and Shaun move to a new place, and no one is surprised when Norman accompanies them.

Six months.

A year out and he's still there, sharing Ethan's bed and so much more.

Forever.


End file.
